


Eclipse. (Or the one where Bradley is the Sun and Colin is the Moon)

by mssdare



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M, fairy tale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 20:17:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssdare/pseuds/mssdare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the first day he says, “I'm the Sun. You might need your shades to look straight at me.” And then he leans closer to the boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eclipse. (Or the one where Bradley is the Sun and Colin is the Moon)

**Author's Note:**

> This ridiculous story is written because of FEELS.  
> First, there was Supanova and all the reports and pictures of Bradley finally relaxed and smiling. Then there was my trip to London to see Colin perform in the Tempest, but he was ill, and I didn’t get to see him after all. So, the result is this little fairy-tale I hope you’ll enjoy.
> 
> Disclaimer: I’m anxious to post RPF, but I mean no harm! All the events in the story are of course totally made up.
> 
> Many thanks to Sillygoose (Sonofsilly) who did a super-speedy beta on this! <3  
> Any left mistakes are my own.

**ECLIPSE**

 

On the first day he says, “I'm the Sun. You might need your shades to look straight at me.” And then he leans closer to the boy. The air is warm and the boy's skin smells like a summer night—sweet and fresh: intoxicating.  

“Don't touch me, or you'll get burnt,” the Sun adds, even though the boy hasn't moved an inch. But the Sun's cocky and he’s confident that he knows life.

The boy smiles with his eyes downcast. “I'm the Moon,” he says. “It's a pleasure to meet you.” For the Moon is ever so polite.

xxx

He keeps to himself, the Moon, as if he's hiding, shying away, while the Sun is always with people. It unnerves the Sun, since no one should be immune to his cheerful, playful ways.

It begins as a challenge then, to make the Moon interested, to make him notice the Sun, to force him to _look,_ but soon enough the Sun finds out he’s been caught in his own net, as he can’t turn his eyes away from the Moon—ever so calm, ever so pensive, ever so beautiful with his fair skin and serious eyes.

They have a small break in between the takes, one of many (in fact, the Sun feels that his life consists of pauses and waiting for the elements of surroundings to be set in place). The air is stilled, not a gust of wind moving the leaves and the branches as they walk slowly through green woods, the Sun following the Moon's steps, as usual these days. It's hot, the Sun's dominion, and he wonders how the Moon stands such weather, suffocating and heavy as if before a storm.  
  
"You want?" The Moon turns around with his palm extended towards the Sun. There are wild raspberries on it. Three small, red triangles create a geometric shape on the smooth skin like a dark constellation against a pale sky.  
  
The Sun reaches for them, squeezing a bit of the rich juice as he picks them up. The nectar paints the Moon's long, elegant fingers, smearing across the skin like fresh blood.  
  
The berries taste sour-sweet, like childhood memories of forests and lakes in the summer. The Moon picks some more and licks his palm afterwards, slowly. The Sun’s throat goes dry. He might not always understand what the Moon is saying in his strange dialect, but he sure gets the Moon’s intent when the boy stares at him with his tongue still pressed flat to the skin of his palm.

xxx

The first time they lie together it’s full of awkwardness, despite the desire.

The Sun cannot grope enough, squeezing, pushing, tugging, until the Moon hisses and pulls back.

“It’s not football, you know?” the boy says, but he’s laughing and it’s good. It can’t be bad when the Moon is smiling this broadly, when Moon’s fingers are travelling through the Sun’s hair and the Moon’s stiffened cock is nudging the Sun’s thigh.

He apologises later. “I've never been with a man.”

“I've not been either,” the Moon admits.

xxx

The Sun knows days, but the Moon shows him the shadows and the nights.

“I’m not the way you think I am,” the Moon whispers, not looking up. They’re in the Sun’s hotel room, with bed-sheets crumpled and clothes on the floor. “I'll freeze you to the bone, you know?”

“I’m too hot for this.” The Sun laughs, dismissively, a bit proud of the little innuendo he’s managed to come up with. “Let me warm you up,” he says later, and the Moon does: under the Sun's urgent fingers he unravels and stretches, gasping.

xxx

He panics when the Moon slips away for the first time. The Sun searches for him everywhere, with no luck.

“Where were you?” he shouts when the Moon sneaks into his room, looking thin and fragile, wet from the rain.

“I’m sorry,” the Moon says, but his teeth are rattling so hard it’s barely audible. “I’m here now.”

And then, as the days go by—happy days in which they sing and play pranks together, and harsher ones filled with so much work they tumble into their bed without a word—the Moon grows bigger and bigger, until he’s too big for the Sun to hold him, even in arms stretched wide.

He tries to grasp the boy anyway—tries hard, fails, yet doesn’t give up. His patience is rewarded when, in a few days, the Moon turns his face towards him and winks, his smile dazzling as usual.

xxx

The night is cold. The Stars have all but vanished, shying away from the bright light of the Moon in his waxing phase. But the Moon’s usual gentleness is replaced by a strange turmoil.

“I can’t breathe!” the Moon says, eventually. “Wherever I turn there’s you. And there’s nowhere to hide.” He’s getting hysterical all of a sudden, arms flailing, tears spilling in heavy drops, one and then another one. He wipes them away with an angry wave of his hand.

The Sun just stands there, stunned, speechless, breathless, because it’s so unlike the Moon—his gentle, sweet boy—to lash out like this, as if he’s been truly cornered. And when did this happen? Has he really been so possessive, to make the Moon suffocate?

“I can’t breathe,” the Moon repeats and _folds_ himself to the ground in one swift motion. It looks like one of those slow motion captures of blooming flowers, only played in reverse.

The sight makes the Sun hurt all over. Because it’s cruel, and awfully wrong that it’s he who’s the source of the Moon’s meltdown, that he’s the reason for this picture of bundled up boy breathing through his tears with his head hidden on his knees, shoulders trembling and feet placed at an awkward, bent angle.

The Sun can’t watch this. There’s something hard and vicious building up in his chest, choking him. He’ll explode unless he decides right now that he doesn’t care. He _can’t_ care.

He turns around slowly, but his head is still spinning, boiling with rage. He leaves, not closing the door, not caring if someone might see the inside of their room with the Moon left there so exposed, so vulnerable as if his insides are showing.

xxx  
  
It's a Sunday morning, cloudy and slightly chilly, when he finds out that the Moon was right—he’s frozen and can't breathe, either. He hadn't noticed that before, but now he does, because he tries to inhale and it feels as if flames have entered his chest. He’s used to burning, but this is different, this is frost eating him up from the inside.

He can squeeze in enough oxygen to survive, but the tension in his lungs doesn't ever leave.

He turns to the Stars—because the Stars are his sisters as much as they’re the Moon's—with an official request to give him his breath back. They laugh and jump around, but finally they let him follow them as they shoot across the sky towards the Earth, their tails filled with whispered wishes and pleas.

xxx

The next time he sees the Moon, months have gone by. The leaves on the trees are green again and the air smells like new promises.

The Sun is guarded though. He keeps himself a safe distance away, opting to play with the Stars. The Moon looks hurt and lonely, but isn’t that what the Moon’s supposed to look like, hanging above the Earth?

It’s a surprise then, that when the Sun comes back later to his room, slightly drunk, he finds the Moon waiting for him in the darkness, silent and humble.

Words like “please” and “sorry” and “try again” taste bitter, but he drinks them in eagerly anyway as he allows his fingers to get accustomed to the Moon’s features again: tight muscles, sharp bones and soft skin.

Once more, he finds his way inside the Moon’s body, licking and stretching it, filling it up with his hot essence, hoping that it will last.

xxx

But he’s been fooling himself. And it hurts even more the next time when the Moon cries tears that the Sun can’t dry away and announces he needs more room for himself. ~~~~

“I can’t go on like this,” the Sun says and drowns himself in the Ocean, bleeding.

“Oh, the drama,” the Moon chastises him and brings the tides to wash away the blood.

But the Sun simply can’t grow accustomed to the Moon’s ever-changing ways, to the coming and going. He _wants_ to accept it, as it’s the Moon’s nature and he shouldn’t fight something that is beyond his will, but he just can’t.

xxx

When the cameras shut down for the last time, he's so fucking relieved it's finally over that he can't bring himself to care that the Moon’s in his waning phase and probably feels extra shitty, sneaking off the set with his head bent low.

The Sun knows that soon enough the Moon will rise again and grow bigger than he’s ever done before. And the Sun isn’t sure he wants to be around when this happens. He wouldn’t be allowed to touch, and his heart would break tenfold.

So no matter what the force of gravity tells him, no matter that he seems unable to turn his face in any direction but towards the Moon, he knows that he has to get up and try to run away.

For it might be a fucking _eclipse,_ but it's not the end of the world.  
  
xxx

He searches for places where there's no Moon.  
  
The white nights of the North are alluring, but he starts with the familiar West. Perhaps once he's settled in his final destination, he'll find a space to shine in colours the way he used to do before the Moon stole away his heat.

But it's useless, and the Sun grows bitter. He feels cold. His rays have all but vanished. His body is stiffened, and the lines of his face are frozen in one expression.  
  
That’s why he doesn't hesitate when the Stars ask him to travel to the East with them. A new beginning is what he needs. He wants to rise, to feel fresh, warm, to shake off the visions of nights spent in the Moon's arms with their bodies glistening, and cocks rubbing against each other. He's haunted by the memories of the way the Moon's luscious lips part when he comes, of the way the Moon's lean arms tremble when the Sun slides into him, of the way the Moon's delicate fingers close around their erections to bring them off. He doesn’t want to remember the softness of the Moon’s skin when the Sun kisses the arches of his feet.

Even worse are the images of the Moon's easy smiles and uninhibited laugh, his body relaxed and sated, spread out loosely on the Sun's bed. Or when the Moon's teasing him, fucking pixie that he is. Somehow the Sun doesn't think of the moments when the Moon grows distant, consumed by his visions, wound up tight, riding high on his emotions.

xxx

The East is surprisingly pleasant. The people are eager but not imposing, the weather is warm but not scalding. For once the focus is on the Sun, and it’s a relief.

He can finally, _finally_ breathe again. The painful ice holding him starts melting. He’s rising.

He takes his phone and tweets _#heat,_ knowing Miami has won and no one but the Moon will think he means anything different.

When the Moon goes out in a matching cap, the Sun smiles broadly and dances.  
  
xxx  
  
The phone call reaches him as he's standing in Whole Foods, feeling much like the stalker he is, since he's not even going to eat the things he’s stacked in his basket.

“What's wrong?” he asks, because there must be a reason the Moon is calling him, of all people.

There's no answer, just a gasp of air, and for a moment the Sun thinks that maybe he’s mistaken and it's not the Moon at all. But then the voice comes, almost soundless and tiny: “I’ve disappeared. I can't perform.”

“I'm on my way,” the Sun says, and abandons the groceries in the aisle.  
  
xxx  
  
“You pathetic, sorry sod,” he greets the Moon, who opens the door swaying and sweaty, barely visible. “You knew this would happen. You should have known. Have you lost the ability to do simple math?”

The Moon just shakes his head, tears threatening to spill, and crawls back to bed, burying himself under the piles of damp sheets. The Sun sighs and climbs right behind him, messy airport-stinking clothes and all. He brushes the Moon's greasy hair back from his face. It's grown so long; he’s never touched it like this before.

“I missed you,” he says, kissing the Moon’s cold skin.

xxx

“Go on,” he says later. “Break a leg. I’ll be here, bored, playing with my phone.” He smiles and chooses a pic he’s wanted to tweet for a long time.

In four hours he’ll have his Moon back.

For the Moon will always come back to the Sun, since gravity is ever in their favour. As well as fate. After all the Moon can’t shine without a Sun. And there would be no point in being the Sun without a Moon to reflect the light.


End file.
